After six consecutive defeat and being knocked out of the race to play-offs of the Pakistan Super League, the team Lahore Qalandars finally appears to have wakened up as they won two matches back to back.
But, it’s too late for them.
However, for Brendon McCullum, the captain of Lahore Qalandars, it is important to win remaining two games and stay focused.
The New Zealander spoke after Qalandars win against Karachi Kings in the one-over eliminator and he spoke his heart out on what went wrong in earlier games, how he thought of leaving captaincy and handling Umar Akmal.
“We probably should have won through those games if we had been honest in those crunch moments. We lost those key moments, if we could have won them, we could have won the three of the first six,” he said.
“It was very disappointing,” he said while sharing his frustration over losing first six games.
The former Kiwi captain said that what frustrated him the most was not the results but lack of application at times.
“I don’t mind losing too much but make it hard to beat. Play with as much passion and pride as you can, if the opposition is good enough to beat, then fair enough, but there were times there were questions on how big our application was,” he highlighted.
He also confirmed that he thought of leaving the captaincy and when he made players realised that he was ready to do so, the players responded and stood up for the team.
“When you are captain of the team you are judged based on the result. Even though if you are the best person for the job but if you are not able to reach the guys who you are meant to be leading and inspire them to perform better. I think mentioning that was very rare for everyone of that, then once the guys realized that I was prepared to that as well, the guys started to look how they can help the team,” Brendon mentioned.
“I am very humbled by the confidence shown in me by Sameen and Fawad, Aqib and the senior players,” he said on the support he got from the management of Lahore Qalandars.
McCullum is now focused on Lahore’s remaining two games and want to win them to finish the tournament on a positive note for Lahore fans.
“I want to focus on the two games we have left now. If you look at our squad its probably lacking a bit of star quality but it is the team desperate to play for one another and what we saw today obviously Agha Salman, Sohail Khan, Sohail Akhtar standing up was just symbolic of what we want to be known for, means too much for the people of Lahore,” said the captain of Lahore Qalandars.
He also spoke highly of Agha Salman and termed him a guy who he would look forward to in future.
“He is very calm and you look him into the eye and no matter how much pressure is on, he looks very very relax and very calm. He has got a big future and he will get opportunities. He will get opportunities for us that’s why we are batting him further up in the order cause I like what he has got. We like his presence. This is the guy who we can look for in the future,” he said.
